


As Time Goes By

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [8]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Casablanca Fusion, Alternate Universe - Noir, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Non-Binary Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, Revolutionary Peter Nureyev, Saloon Owner Juno Steel, Slow Burn, by that i mean the slowest burn i can manage it's not that bad, canon-typical lack of homophobia!! wahoo, good for him, i made sure it's ok if you haven't seen the movie, theres so much yearning in this guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Juno hadn’t ever had the pleasure of meeting Peter Nureyev until that point. Everything he knew was second hand. He knew Nureyev was supposed to be bold and passionate and the worst nightmare of Majors and Captains alike. He knew he was supposed to have a patch of grayed hair just above his temple, according to the warrant for his arrest, and he wore it like a crown, according to all who had seen him.He never heard that he wore the exact same face as the man whose heart Juno had broken in Paris a year before.(Free!) Commission for @glitter-river-spirit on tumblr !! Updating daily!
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 46
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from As Time Goes By by Dooley Wilson
> 
> Like I said, this is BASED on the movie. I had to make some pretty solid changes (sorry to any diehard fans. i love it but i had to give a bitch some agency) so it should read like any other historical au!! For history buffs, this is 1941. By the way, when I say content warning for alcohol, i mean it. Most of this takes place in a bar
> 
> Content warnings for alcohol, n*zi party mention (it's wwii guys), self hatred, background invasion/war, suicide mention (as a way to cover up a murder), murder mention, arrest, background revolution, refugee situation, police/government corruption, implied depression, blood mention, general hopelessness? juno's sad, nausea mention

If Juno had his way, he’d find some little corner of the world in which to wait for the day when he could stick his neck out for somebody without getting it chopped off. 

That was the intention in coming to Casablanca, which could be described kindly as a city in French Morocco, soon to become German occupied French Morocco if one didn’t feel particularly optimistic. Casablanca could be described less kindly as the world’s waiting room. 

It was the last crowded chapter before an epilogue, pushing and squirming with desperate, tragic stories trying to pull the last page by force and get resolved in the final moments of the novel. That epilogue required more passports and paperwork than most people could get their hands on, but that didn’t stop the masses from dreaming that the next plane to somewhere safer might carry them.

Casablanca was, perhaps most importantly, neutral in that great conflict that had lost Juno an eye, a hell of a lot of sleep, and a lover, on those days he didn’t blame himself for that last one. That meant people from every corner of the world packed into that little city to sell their souls for transit papers and a hope of tomorrow.

The city seemed to hold a thousand new faces in it every day. Juno knew this because he saw nearly every one of them. 

Juno’s Cafe Americain was a bit of a misnomer. It was less a cafe than a gin joint where the crime lords and inspectors gambled side by side and joked about their illegal winnings over drinks. It was also about as American as its owner, who, despite being born there, felt like he hardly remembered the place. He assumed the few years he spent overseas had just been drudgery enough to make the city lights of New York fade in his memory.

Even as the world crumbled around him, Juno’s little watering hole in the middle of the desert was enough to keep him sane. The world might change shape every morning, but Juno’s Cafe Americain always remained the same. Three basic rules always held firm. He never drank with customers, the pianist always played, and everybody came to Juno’s. 

The first evening in a series that would change Juno’s life would have worn the blanket of soft evening fizzling into even softer night had it not been for the hungry eye of the watchtower, its white light blazing in a constant, searching circle around the town. Juno didn’t know what it was looking for, but he had long since resolved to keep his head down. He didn’t want to be the unlucky bastard to find out. 

The light inside the bar was warm enough to fend off the clawing eye just outside, and Juno was far too concerned with the ratlike man making his company at the bar to pay that electric white circle any more than a passing glance when it peeked through the window. 

“It’s not that hot out and you’re sweating like a sinner in church,” Juno cut the man off during some rambling story about his meandering travels. “If you’ve got something you wanna say to me, just say it.”

“Did you hear about those two German couriers who were murdered?” the man leaned forward to whisper. 

“They’re all I’ve heard about all day,” Juno huffed. 

“They were carrying transit papers. It’s the best kind of passage out of Casablanca. It doesn’t matter who you are or what kind of record you’ve got,” he continued. “They found the bodies, but not the papers. One or both of them must have been stolen.”

“That’s a great fairytale, but why the hell does it matter to me?” Juno grumbled. “God, I’m sick of humoring half-rate criminals. I haven’t seen the papers around, if you’re gonna ask that next.”

The man pressed a bundle of paperwork into his hands. Juno’s eye widened.

“Not so half-rate,” Juno mumbled as he glanced down at the paper. “Gonna take a wild guess and say this isn’t for me?”

“It’s for whoever can pay,” the man returned. “If you want to give me three hundred thousand francs for it, it’s yours. But that’s a discount for a friend.”

“No thanks. I’m planning on dying here,” Juno said flatly. 

“Then you’ve got to keep it somewhere safe for me. The police Captain’s here tonight, and he brought an ambassador friend,” the man hissed. His sweaty palms dug into the papers to stuff them into the breast pocket of Juno’s white coat, and before Juno could so much as protest, he scurried off and away into the gambling room. 

Still blinking at the violation of personal space, Juno fixed the papers within his jacket, but found he couldn’t get them to sit comfortably with the blazing hole they were burning into his ribs. 

Instead, he strolled over to the main room of the cafe and slid them beneath the piano’s lid while the crowd remained entertained on a rousing tune barked out from the pianist. Even if the pianist saw, Juno doubted there would be any trouble. The two of them had escaped occupied Paris together almost a year ago, not to mention the half dozen times he’d saved Juno’s life just by keeping a song playing. 

For a moment, Juno crossed his arms over the lid of that tinny wheeled saloon piano, just feeling the music resonating up through him as a reminder that his feet still touched the ground in Casablanca, and not Paris or New York or some other city that beat the hell out of him and laughed when he bled. His eye wasn’t the only part of him left in Paris. He suspected his heart was somewhere there too. 

He lost himself for long enough not to hear the approaching footsteps of the Captain. When the man laid a hand upon his shoulder, he jumped high enough to spill a nearby customer’s drink.

“Mister Steel,” the Captain greeted in an accent that was French, but happy to learn German at the slightest pressure. 

“Captain,” Juno acknowledged absentmindedly, still scanning his white jacket for stains. 

“You haven’t happened to hear about those two couriers, have you?” he began, though not unkindly. 

He had a glass in his hand, a smile only in his eyes, and a habit of gambling at Juno’s Cafe Americain. It seemed fate had kept his mood blessedly pleasant, even if their interactions usually ranged from cold respect to Juno’s thinly veiled rebellion against the spineless official. 

“Seems they’re the only thing anyone can agree to talk about right now,” Juno deflected. “One day you’re a courier, the next day you’re the honored dead. I think I’m gonna have to give getting murdered a try.”

“I should hope not,” the Captain chuckled. “Prices elsewhere are unkind.” 

“Only thing I haven’t heard straight was whether there was one paper or two,” Juno pressed on. 

“Only one paper,” he returned slowly. “You know Juno, I am well aware of what goes on at this bar.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Look to your left, Juno,” the Captain continued. “A man gambling to pay for passage out of Casablanca. To your right, you’ll see members of a band who learned instruments just to save the money to leave. Anything that would sell under the table anywhere else in the world sells above the table here.”

“You think somebody’s gonna try to sell those papers here?” Juno replied, one eyebrow raised.

“I’m sure of it,” the Captain replied.

“You want me to stop it?”

“Not particularly,” the Captain shrugged. “I’m a corrupt official, not a heartless one. I just have one stipulation.”

“Captain, I run an underground gambling gin joint where people sell their souls for plane tickets. Everybody’s got an angle, and I’m up to my ass in stipulations,” Juno sighed, made a gesture for a nearby waiter, then took a drink of champagne that tasted flat with the knowledge that he had paid for it. 

“I thought you didn’t drink with customers.”

“I’ll drink for myself,” Juno shrugged. “I’m not taking your stipulation, by the way.”

“Then treat it as a warning.”

“Was that a threat, Captain?” Juno replied coolly behind his glass. 

“Not from me. There are two individuals coming to your bar tonight that I think you should hear about. The first is a certain resistance fighter by the name of Peter Nureyev. The second is a German Major who intends that Nureyev never leaves Casablanca alive,” the Captain explained. “Seeing as that Major will very soon hold both of our lives in his hands, I’m of the opinion that it’s best to do what he wants.”

“The Nazis already took my eye, Cap,” Juno shot back. “They’re not taking my free reign over my bar.”

“I’m sure I’m not the first to remind you that you already have quite the record in their files.”

“Fine then. I don’t have the papers, but if I did, I wouldn’t give them to him. Not like we’re both in neutral territory and can do whatever the hell we want or anything,” Juno said, physically restraining his sneer. “Is that what you’d like to hear, Captain?”

“It’s enough to keep the both of us alive for another week or two.”

“That’s a shame,” Juno snorted, then finished off the dregs of his glass and deposited it back on the passing waiter. “You’ve got my interest though. Any clue where I might find this Nureyev guy?”

“Oh, he’s at that table over there, getting his life threatened by my friend the Major,” the Captain returned, a thumb over his shoulder at the back of a head Juno felt he should have recognized. 

“I’ll have to buy him a drink some time,” Juno murmured. 

“I thought you didn’t drink with customers,” the Captain chuckled. 

“I think I might make an excuse for a freedom fighter.”

“The Major won’t like that, you know,” he warned. 

“Good.”

Juno didn’t like to keep that kind of company for too long, so he didn’t. He could only disappear into a crowd so much with his stark white blazer and all too known face, but the smattering of drunk patrons and gamblers and trombonists on break made following him like navigating a hedge maze. 

Even snaking his way through the crowd and the band, Juno tried to keep his eye on one of two things. First, the greasy mustache and dark, greasy eyes of the Major, looking across the table at someone who must have been Peter Nureyev. He couldn’t see Nureyev’s face, but he assumed the expression wasn’t positive. He doubted anyone could muster a smile in response to the Major’s predatory grin, like that of a snake preparing to strike. Second, he made sure to watch the piano, just in case someone should go after the papers hidden there. 

He clearly hadn’t kept a vigilant enough watch on either, for he blinked and the piano had moved since he last saw it, rolled over to some table or another who had requested a song. The Major, on the other hand, was creeping his way over to the Captain with a pleasant look that made Juno’s stomach turn. 

Juno decided to clear his head by yelling at a couple for doing a few too many shots and shooing them out the door into the sizzling ozone of the night air. When he returned back to that sea of crowded tables, he felt his heart drop into his stomach. 

The piano was no longer in its regular spot, and was making its rounds playing requested songs for certain patrons. That wasn’t exactly the problem. The problem was the song mourning its way from the piano, all crashing chords and snapping heartstrings. It was the kind of song that sounded the way it felt to have two eyes and a less lined face. It smelled like roses and tasted like champagne that hadn’t gone flat, and hearing it, Juno could almost remember what it felt like to believe he had a future. 

In Paris, he had danced to that song with Peter Ransom, and laughed to that song with Peter Ransom, and drank a final toast to France before it became occupied France with Peter Ransom. He heard that song when Ransom asked his hand in marriage and said they should run away with one another. The song raised one more memory, as sour as bile in the back of his throat. It played when Juno had promised Peter an endless future together, then turned around and left him. 

Most importantly, it was the only song Juno had firmly barred the pianist from ever laying into his keys. 

“What the hell have I said about that song?” Juno snapped as he stormed over, uncaring that his voice trembled and his anger sounded about as genuine as a paper mask. 

The pianist stood, packed up his bench, and nodded in the direction of the nearest table before Juno even had time to regret raising his voice. 

“Mister Nureyev requested it,” the pianist murmured, though he was already walking back across the bar before Juno could say another thing. 

Juno hadn’t ever had the pleasure of meeting Peter Nureyev until that point. Everything he knew was second hand. He knew Nureyev was supposed to be bold and passionate and the worst nightmare of Majors and Captains alike. He knew he was supposed to be handsome, with a single, newly cut scar above his eyebrow that only made him nicer to look at. He had a patch of white hair just above his temple, according to the warrant for his arrest, and he wore it like a crown, according to all who had seen him. 

Juno hadn’t ever heard anyone describe the curve of his face or the darkness and sharpness that walked hand in hand in his clever, calculating eyes. He hadn’t heard of his straight posture or of the graceful poise of his hands. 

Most importantly, however, he had never heard that he wore the exact same face as the man whose heart Juno had broken in Paris a year before. 

“Peter Nureyev, huh?” Juno finally choked out. 

“I thought we agreed not to ask questions,” Ransom, or Nureyev, or whoever the hell he really was replied with so potent a venom Juno felt his veins shiver in response. “Or did you cast aside our months together when you cast aside me?”

“At least let me buy you a drink.”

“Funny,” Nureyev sneered. “I heard the owner of this establishment never drank with customers.”

“I like breaking precedents,” Juno shrugged as he pulled out a chair adjacent to Nureyev. “Keeps me on my toes.”

“So tell me, darling,” Peter began, the pet name sinking into Juno like barbed wire. “I never took you as a cruel individual, but crashing back into my life mere days before I intended to leave Casablanca—Well, it just makes me wonder, that’s all.”

“You’ve met the Major?” Juno asked, praying the conversation would become businesslike enough that he might somehow forget how his eyes used to linger on those lips just before they met his own. 

Kissing him had a way of making Juno feel like the war that had swallowed the world like a snake devouring an egg was somebody else’s problem. Those lips could rewrite history into something kinder, almost making Juno believe he deserved to be out of harm’s way for long enough to appreciate it. They had almost succeeded in spiriting him out of Paris and to somewhere safer, until old habits decided it would be better to die for a cause than to live for one. 

Paris hadn’t killed him, somehow. Thanks to that, he was alive to see Peter Nureyev’s face fighting back the contortion of rage. 

“I’m assuming the Major was that lovely gentleman who just came over here and told me I was a dead man if I attempted to leave this city?”

“The way I hear it, you’re a dead man if you stay,” Juno returned. 

“Wonderful. I get to die here with Juno Steel,” Nureyev groaned. 

“Look—” Juno started to snap, but found himself broken off by a shout and a clattering of shoes on the tile below.

The ratlike man whose stolen goods hid in the piano was attempting to scurry away from the Captain, who, unfortunately for him, was as fast as he was spineless. He seized the man by the arm and had handcuffs around his wrists before he could even start to protest. Juno grimaced. 

“I don’t envy him,” Juno cringed. “Twenty francs says he’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

“You always were an optimist,” Nureyev murmured as he watched the man’s arrest with the solemn eyes of an angel statue in a graveyard. “I’d give him until tonight.”

“Do you think he’ll commit suicide or die trying to escape?” 

“I don’t think our friend the Major’s decided yet.”

Juno managed a dry laugh, though he felt like the butt of the joke. He supposed humor had some kind of root in human suffering, but it was hard to appreciate the same joke done over a million times all around him. Just when he thought he had begun to stomach the bidding war over lives and tickets and passports and papers, it had to get personal. 

“Nureyev,” he began, trying to hate the way that name danced across his lips. 

“Yes, Juno?” Nureyev replied. He sounded like he was trying to do the same. 

“I’ve gotta say, you’re—”

“As beautiful as the day you left me. I remember,” Nureyev cut him off. “I think it would be better for the both of us to attempt to never speak to one another again. Perhaps, that way, we’ll remember what we once had in Paris, rather than whatever the hell is happening in Casablanca.”

“I don’t think either of us are the same person we were back then.”

“Believe that if you want,” Nureyev replied, his voice ice. “How does one pay the bill in an establishment such as yours?”

Juno picked up the slip of paper and stuffed it into his jacket. 

“By being an old friend of the owner,” Juno said, and turned to leave before he could break either of their hearts again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!! Big flashback in this one for anybody potentially confused!
> 
> Content warnings for alcohol, (past) alcohol dependency, self hatred, implied depression, background war/invasion, past gun violence, past injury, infection mention, past betrayal, blood mention

A few months ago, Juno might have asked the pianist to stay while he closed up alone, playing that same damned song over and over until he either succumbed from either his bleeding ears or bleeding heart. He hoped, however, that the Juno Steel who might have spent the rest of his evening staring at his own reflection in the bottom of his glass was dead, left rotting wherever his old eye was. 

Nobody had taken the eye, really. A long series of infections after an injury that left a mile-wide scar across his nose had clawed their way into his face during his time with the French resistance. Even then, he didn’t blame the bullet, or the gun, or the man who had pulled the trigger, or even the officer who told that soldier to shoot. He couldn’t even bring himself to blame the figureheads and world leaders pulling the strings. 

At the end of the day, it was easier to blame fate, or God, or the great, uncaring eye of the watchtower. It was easiest of all to blame himself, but that was a well-worn trail by now. 

He’d spent far too many hours cleaning glasses and pushing chairs in and walking through basic closing maintenance with his head a million miles away. After every curdling thought became so overdone it was corny, he made the resolute decision to, at the very least, put up with himself. He didn’t have to like himself. Hell, he didn’t even have to forgive himself for leaving Ransom, or Nureyev, or whoever he really was in Paris. 

Pretending didn’t make him any less tired. Pretending didn’t make him think he was any better of a person, at the end of the day. But pretending was better than muddling through life with one hand on the wall just to stay upright.

Instead, he tried to focus on the way each glass felt in his hand, from the flat sides to the curves and the ones with heavy bases or slender flutes. Even with the lights turned, if not entirely off, low, the constant companion of the watchtower’s glow made every smudge look like a storm cloud reflecting across an otherwise pristine lake.

Despite his best efforts, the shadow of Peter Nureyev continued to haunt him. 

. . . 

“How do you feel about a drink before you go? Might not get a chance to finish the other three,” Juno began as he walked the man he knew as Peter Ransom from a window overlooking a midday Parisian street. 

“Juno, darling,” Peter pressed. “You need to leave. The Germans are invading now, and there’s quite the price on your head.”

“And wouldn’t you know it? I’ve still got just enough time for a glass with Peter Ransom,” Juno returned, pressing a champagne flute into Peter’s hand. “How about a toast?”

Ransom sighed, but the look could only survive so long looking upon Juno. He fixed him with a starry eyed smile and raised the glass.

“To you and I, my love.”

“Here’s looking at you kid,” Juno snorted as he raised one last toast to the city and the stranger who had torn his heart in half in their struggle over it. 

“I’m barely younger than you,” Ransom protested, though he tried to say it with his usual easy grin that was equal parts jazz piano and violin. 

Juno could tell there was a strain on it though, for usually Ransom smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The corner of his mouth sank far quicker than usual, which Juno only knew because he had spent most of their cruelly short time together gazing off at it. 

Ransom caught him staring, and that dazzling grin waltzed across his face once more. It was short lived, however, for he decided his mouth was better fit for other things, and Juno certainly wasn’t one to protest. Even if that tiny patch of paradise was crumbling beneath his feet, pushing the thought aside was far easier with Ransom’s lips on his. 

The piano’s pedals might have creaked, and every C note was tuned a little different, but he didn’t care so long as those sweetly crashing, aching chords were mourning out their song. That little two-verse jazz ballad floated through the air like the last perfume of a rose before it's crushed in autumn’s fist, and he doubted he could physically complain with Ransom gripping onto him as if they might never meet again. 

When they finally pulled from the kiss, Juno felt the world had yet to stop spinning around the axis of he and Peter Ransom, two almost strangers who had agreed never to mention their pasts, clutching like lifelines in the wrong city in the worst possible year. 

“Oh, Juno,” Ransom murmured, and broke that trancelike mist with all the efficiency of the oncoming siege of Paris. “Why couldn’t I have met you a decade from now, when all this is over? You’ve rewritten all of my plans, my dear.”

“That would’ve been a decade you were never lucky enough to know me,” Juno snorted. 

“Be serious, my darling,” Ransom tried not to laugh. 

“The world’s ending, and you want me to be serious?”

Ransom sighed and guided Juno back to his seat with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t be a cynic, darling. The world’s not going to end when Paris does,” he smiled, though Juno knew all too well that the corner of his mouth was strained. 

“My world with you,” Juno managed, and hoped Peter might understand an iota of what that meant. 

He could only pray that Ransom had somehow looked within his mind or back pocket and seen he only had a train ticket for one and no intention of leaving. Even with the oncoming storm of a war that just weeks ago, had been as far off as a city street beneath an airplane, there were still things to do. Juno hardly knew the first thing about Ransom, but from the way he clutched Juno’s hands in his own and laughed like Juno had just made the funniest joke he had ever heard, he doubted Ransom had the same ideas about staying behind. 

“If you’re that concerned, we can come back to Paris when the war is over,” Ransom chuckled. “But you must understand, my love, every city is Paris when you’re here with me.”

“I don’t think you understand how maps work,” Juno joked for the sake of shoving down the tremble in his voice. 

“And I don’t think you understand how metaphors work,” Ransom smiled. “Paris will be but a beginning for the two of us. We’ll just take that train far, far away from here, find somewhere safe to wait things out, and then the world will be our oyster, darling. Of course, that’s not to say I don’t have certain obligations, but I suppose you don’t always have to be on the front lines to make some kind of change.”

Juno swallowed, and turned his head away to dig through his pocket for a train ticket. He took his time, even if he knew exactly where it was. He just hoped that Ransom might not see his eyes shining in such a way. 

“My dearest, have I said something to upset you?” Ransom asked when Juno turned up his face once more. 

“I’m—” Juno tried to say. “It’s just—God, how do you do it?”

Ransom’s stupid, beautiful brow furrowed. 

“Do what, darling?”

“How do you plan like there’s gonna be a tomorrow? The city’s under siege, for God’s sake, and you’re talking about years from now,” Juno sputtered out, no longer caring if his voice shuddered under his words like an airplane loosing a bomb. 

“Juno,” Ransom breathed, his rouged lips pulling into the softest smile Juno never deserved to see. “It’s simple, my love. Nothing is guaranteed in a world like ours. The only way to function is to pretend you have some kind of control over it. There’s a certain kind of dignity in a brave face. Even a weak one.”

Juno felt his head fall into his hands, simultaneously chastising himself for the patheticness of it all and tossing all cares away. Ransom’s hand rubbed against his back all the while. Juno didn’t have the heart to push his hand away, even if red hot shame burned at his chest for the fact that Ransom was comforting the lady about to leave him. 

He wanted to confess. He wanted to leave Ransom some kind of address, if he even knew where that was, or even if it would stay standing through the week. Instead, he opened his mouth and let the first thing that came to mind slip out. 

“I love you,” he breathed. 

“A bit rash of you, darling,” Ransom returned, though Juno could hear him smiling. 

“And who the hell knows if I’m gonna make it through the week? I love you now,” Juno continued. 

He raised his head for a good look at Ransom, anointed in his soft light. Everything about Peter Ransom was as soft as it was sharp. The curl of his stray hairs and the curve of his cheek were near-cherubic in the hazy light of that little windowside table, though his teeth were as sharp as ever. Juno wanted to kiss the smile that revealed them right off his face, but something festering in his chest told him he deserved no such thing. 

Ransom rested a hand on his face, one graceful thumb running along Juno’s cheekbone. 

“I love you too,” he murmured, and leaned forward as if he was going to catch Juno’s lips in his own once more. 

Juno pulled him into a hug before he got the chance. He knew staying to help the resistance was the right thing to do, but if Ransom kissed him again, it might just kill him not to leave with him on that train. 

“Are you alright?” 

Juno lied and nodded against his chest. 

“Here’s your train ticket,” Juno started as he did Ransom the small mercy of pulling away. “I know it’s got my name on it, but I bought it in a hurry.”

“Something of mine with your name on it,” Ransom mused. “I think I might just hold onto this train ticket for as long as I live.”

“Sap,” Juno teased, as he knew it was something he would do if he weren’t bearing this silent burden. 

“I know there’s plenty weighing on you right now, what with the war and leaving Paris and all, but I thought I might just offer while I’m here,” Ransom began. “If a ship’s captain can marry a couple, I don’t see why we shouldn’t go to the train’s engineer and ask that he take care of things for us.”

Ransom seemed hellbent on tormenting Juno in that horrible, optimistic way of his. Every fleeting smile that had gone to Juno’s head an overly floral perfume that clouded his head with some great ache, like a dam threatening to burst from the strain of all it was holding back. Every twitch of his artful hands or flicker of city light on his face stabbed another pin into the black, cold void Juno suspected his heart had once been. 

“That’s a little too far ahead to plan,” he said, trying to break Ransom’s heart as kindly as possible. 

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Ransom continued to smile stubbornly as he pocketed the ticket. “I’ll pick you up later today?”

“No, I—” Juno sputtered. “I still have things to do in the city before I go. People I need to say goodbye to. That kind of thing.”

“I understand,” Ransom returned, his hand still on Juno’s face and his infuriatingly soft smile anointing the room. “Then I’ll meet you at the train station.” 

“At the train station,” Juno pretended to agree. 

He tried to grasp for something else to say, perhaps to amend the lie or make some draft of whatever farewell letter might be soon penned in a shaking, numb hand. Juno tried to force himself to remember the people he could save by staying, rather than the one person who had rewritten his world and made the mistake of falling in love with him. 

Ransom did him one last kindness and kissed him again. The tinny sound of the piano continued to float by like a final exhale, sounding like the roses Ransom liked best and the cologne he wore when they met and the way he once laid his head on Juno’s shoulder when they had been driving around Paris. It was strange to think of those carefree people now, for Juno doubted either one to still exist. His chest ached when he felt Ransom’s lips tug against the pull of a smile, and in tandem with the distant thunder of German artillery, it dawned on him that Ransom thought he was consummating the beginning of something beautiful. Juno was saying goodbye. 

. . . 

Juno’s battle against his own introspection came to a halt when two sharp, even raps spat upon the door. He knew the owner of the hand before the watchtower’s light even had time to cast Peter Nureyev in that unearthly glow. He also knew the entire encounter would end poorly before he even had time to cross the room and pull the door open. 

“Bar’s closed,” Juno said before Nureyev could get a word in.

“You never were a gentleman,” Nureyev sighed. “I didn’t take your offer for a drink earlier. I wouldn’t mind having one now, if you’re not opposed.”

“It’s pretty late.” 

“Was that a no?” Peter returned coldly. 

“Come on in,” he conceded. 

Juno wanted to say no and close the door in the face of the man whose heart he had broken. They could just pretend that their only memories of one another would be that gilded, rose-scented shadow of Paris before everything went to hell. However, Juno had never particularly been in the habit of doing what was good for him. 

“I’ll take your coat,” he heard himself offer.

Even if his fingers barely traced Nureyev’s shoulders to rid him of the coat, it felt as if he were reaching out to touch a storm cloud, and that vicious ozone broiling just beneath the rolling surface had snapped up to sink its teeth into anything that got too close. Juno felt his heart leap nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowee these fuckers sure can Yearn
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll cry about jazz music in your general direction
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooooohhhhhhhh nooooooooo dont keep yearning oh noooooooooo
> 
> Content warnings for alcohol, implied past alcohol dependency, background war/revolution, background/past invasion, minor injury, blood mention, past infection, surgery mention, minor gore, self hatred, gun violence mention

Juno felt fingers that he barely realized were his own pinch his arm, just to remind him that Peter Nureyev was sitting cross-legged at his bar, shining like a pearl in the depths of the ocean, and that he was supposed to be pouring him a drink. He wasn’t dreaming. 

He made his way to the other side of the bar, equal parts heartbroken and thankful for the few feet between them. In the inky darkness that clouded throughout the bar like a decorative shadow in an old painting, those feet could have been miles. With the quiet fire ravaging through Nureyev’s pupils, Juno wasn’t sure if being on the other side of the bar was in his best interest. 

“What’s your poison?” Juno asked.

“I’ll buy one for you too, if you want,” Nureyev offered, lip drawn between his teeth as he mulled over his selection. 

“I’m cutting back,” he explained. Even if his eye darted away, it wasn’t fast enough to miss Nureyev’s raised eyebrows. “I had a glass of champagne earlier, and I’m calling it quits there. If you want wine, I’m not stopping you. I’ve heard the selection’s great.”

“What will it set me back?” 

“Nothing,” Juno shrugged from the other side of the bar and poured a glass of Peter’s favorite, pretending to have chosen it on a whim, rather than a deeply ingrained memory. “Call yourself a friend of the owner’s.”

“So we’re friends now, then?” Nureyev said coldly as Juno slid the wineglass across the bar. 

In the saturated darkness, the drink’s usual shade of bruised red festered into black. 

“I barely knew you then, Nureyev,” Juno returned, crossing his arms to better lean across the bar while Nureyev nursed the glass, eyes widening the moment he recognized the flavor upon his tongue. “I think I remember agreeing not to ask questions.”

“I wish I had kept my promise,” Peter bit, trying and failing to soften himself with another draw from his glass. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me.”

Juno sighed. He knew this had been a bad idea. 

“Does it make you feel better if I tell you that I would’ve said yes under any other circumstances?”

Nureyev’s face came to rest upon his hand, cupping a soft cheek Juno remembered all too well under his own touch. His eyes, on the other hand, made no effort to cease blazing in fury. 

“No. You can wish for a kinder world all you’d like, Juno, but that won’t make it come to fruition,” he returned. “This is the world in which you live, and this is also the world in which you decided to leave me.”

“Nureyev, it’s not like—”

“Oh, do tell me what it’s like,” Peter cut him off. “What could be so important that it didn’t require a note of explanation?”

“Did you come here to yell at me or to get a drink?” Juno snapped. 

“Either,” Nureyev shrugged. “I’m quite enjoying both.”

“I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. I’ve been through hell and back since Paris. You’re talking to a Juno Steel who died about six months ago,” Juno groaned. 

Something soft flickered in Nureyev’s eye, though his jaw remained set. 

“I came here for a drink, not a sob story,” he decided after a long, thoughtful pause. 

“Fine. If you don’t want to drink in silence, just ask me something,” Juno huffed. “Anything to forget whatever the hell happened between you and me.”

“The Juno Steel I knew had two eyes. If it’s not too painful, I would like to hear the story.” 

“And the Peter Ransom I knew didn’t have any scars or gray hair,” Juno returned. 

“I wear it well,” Nureyev protested, his voice venomous. 

“Not saying you don’t,” Juno defended, backing up to raise his hands in surrender. “It’s not a nice story, but if you really want to hear it.”

“Just anything that doesn’t have to do with the both of us.”

The fact of the matter was that Peter Nureyev had no right wearing that streak of gray along his temple the way a different kind of French revolutionary would wear a red and blue rosette upon their chest. It was the banner flying atop the flagpole of his posture, and somehow, managed to soften and humanize a face that once glowed too bright to look at for long. In the dark of Juno’s bar, however, it was dampened enough to stare at forever. Juno wished he could have. He wished he had any right to. 

As for his scar, it was more a silver line above his eyebrow, showing clear signs of an attempt to rid of it. Juno could only guess that was the work of a rather pricey scar cream. Though the snap in Nureyev’s voice had indicated he found neither change of which Juno spoke particularly pleasant, Juno could only imagine what that scar would feel like under his lips. 

“You promised me a story, Juno,” Nureyev interrupted his train of thought. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.” 

“You never did,” Juno smiled to himself. Nureyev glared. 

“You’re a year late to beg for me back,” he snapped. 

“Look, the story’s got a lot to do with Paris, so if you want to save yourself the trouble and just ask me anything else to keep you busy while you’re finishing that glass, I’d do it right about now,” Juno shot back. 

He couldn’t see Nureyev, for he had turned to fill himself a glass of water. However, he could almost hear the retort crackling just beneath his lips like wildfire. When he turned to Peter once more and set his glass aside, an angry flush sat high in Nureyev’s cheeks, while one rouged lip curled up and the knuckles around his glass’s stem went white. Juno wished he hadn’t found that as beautiful as he did, added that to a long list of stuff he didn’t particularly like about himself, and sighed before Nureyev had time to spit some barb back at him. 

“I’m just warning you ahead of time,” Juno said. 

“I’ve been hurt enough for a lifetime. I think I can take it,” Peter returned indignantly. 

“That doesn’t mean you have to.” 

“Just tell me the damned story,” Nureyev shot, raising his glass for a long draw, even if his narrowed eyes never left Juno. 

Juno raised his water in response. 

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he said as a toast. A smile almost crossed his lips until Nureyev’s glare stamped it out like the butt of a cigarette. 

“I stayed in France to help the resistance,” Juno started, remembering that his feet were on the floor in Casablanca. His hand was on a glass which was on a bar in Casablanca. He was in Casablanca, and Paris was a million miles away. “It wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ve told you—“ 

“That you ran weapons for Ethiopia during the Italian invasion and that you fought against the fascists in the Spanish Revolution?” Nureyev tried to reply as if it bored him. 

Juno tried his best to stifle a smile. Peter had remembered. 

“Safe to say they don’t particularly like me here either. Apparently the best way to lose a war is to hire me,” Juno laughed mirthlessly, swallowing it behind his own glass. “I was in Paris, and somebody decided it would be a good idea to shoot me in the head. They missed and blew a chunk of my nose off, which was fine until it rotted, and here’s the thing, Nureyev, you can’t amputate a face, and you can’t put one of those straps around one of them and cut all that gangrene off either, so this nasty little infection of mine ate across my nose, and then it crawled up to my eye and—“

“That’s enough!” Nureyev stood so abruptly the glass of wine spilled over and shattered. 

“I thought you wanted the whole story.” 

“That was terrible.” 

“I tried to warn you,” Juno sighed. He reached for a towel to press into Nureyev’s hands, but Peter waved him off. He jumped at the feeling of blood, sickly warm and metallic and newly shed splattering against his face. 

“Shit, Nureyev, are you okay?” Juno gasped. 

“Of all the damn gin joints in this rotten city, of course I had to pick yours,” Peter hissed as he checked his bleeding hand over for stuck glass. In the dark, Juno couldn’t tell where the wine on his sleeve ended and the bloodstain began. 

“I’ve got a first aid kit in the back,” Juno began to offer. 

“I would rather you just shot me.” 

Juno instead reached for a flashlight to check the floor for the shattered pieces that hadn’t sunk their jagged teeth into Peter’s arm. He did his best to pick them up without worsening the biohazard splattered across the bar, though he felt his fair share of miniature injuries. 

“Are you going to be alright?” He demanded as he worked. From somewhere in the dark above, he heard Nureyev swipe the towel from across the bar and wrap it around his arm. 

“I’ve had worse,” he breathed. “I’ll admit, glass is never pleasant.” 

“You sound like you’re familiar with it.” 

“I’ve broken through my fair share of windows,” Nureyev continued, words wavering as he applied more pressure. “One rather recently left me that lovely mark on my head.” 

“Don’t be dramatic,” Juno grumbled when he returned to the bar with the remnants of Nureyev’s glass all folded into one great, clinking towel. 

“God, you’ve become unpleasant,” Nureyev groaned. 

“Are you always this much of a dick, or only when you’ve just been stabbed by your own damn wine glass?” Juno snapped. 

“The hypocrisy—“ 

“I’m on my second olive branch here, and you spend this entire time just about ready to shoot me,” Juno interrupted. “Hell, if you want to, I’m not stopping you, but Jesus Christ, get it over with already.”

Nureyev righted his stool, then took a step back from the bar. Even with blood pooling onto Juno’s pristine white towel and his hair falling into his face, Peter wore indignance like a crown. Despite everything, Juno still felt a tug in his chest, as if he could reach forward and smooth every sign of pain, be it at his own hand or someone else’s, from Nureyev’s face. However, in that single step backwards, it seemed Nureyev had put miles between them. 

“I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Peter sniffed. 

“If you just want the first aid kit for yourself, it’s okay,” Juno offered once more, though he felt as if he were grasping someone’s arm just as they were about to turn and leave. “I don’t have to be there.” 

“I thank you for your offer, but I’m afraid I would rather bleed in the comfort of my own hotel,” Nureyev returned. “I hope you can understand.” 

“Will I see you at the bar tomorrow?” 

“So long as I can buy passage out of Casablanca here, unfortunately so,” Nureyev grimaced. “Tell me, Juno, what does a human life usually go for in an establishment such as this?” 

“Depends on the highest bidder,” Juno replied with a mournful smile. 

“Goodnight, Juno,” Nureyev said. He turned to get his coat before Juno could see his face. “I—I missed talking to you, I’ll admit.” 

“Funny way of showing it,” Juno huffed. 

Even with his face cast in shadow like the murky corners of a renaissance painting, Juno could see Nureyev’s lip curl. 

However, he seemed to give up on his anger as his shoulders sagged and his head went limp. Juno felt his stomach fall with them. Guilt prickled so hot and potent in his chest that he ran a hand over his blazer to ensure there was no glass driven into his heart. 

“I’m s—“

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Nureyev cut him off. 

Juno watched the sharp black silhouette of Peter Nureyev grow ever smaller as he stepped through the front door and out into the great, cruel light of the watchtower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throwing bad life events like confetti* HAVE CHARACTER GROWTH DAMMIT
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll say gross things about eyeballs in your general direction
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!! Hope you all enjoy this one!
> 
> Content warnings for alcohol, gun violence, life threats, betrayal, police raids, government corruption, implied depression, background war/invasion, injury mention, breaking and entering

Word travelled fast in Casablanca and it travelled especially fast to the doorstep of Juno Steel. Anybody who was anybody stopped by Juno’s Cafe Americain, especially if there was something to talk about. If Juno had to guess, he was surrounded by some of the loosest lips this side of the world. 

He supposed that was what made it paradise for people like the Major, who nursed glasses of wine like it made his spit curdle and watched the crowd like a shark deciding which fish to pick off next. The Major’s people never made trouble, but that didn’t mean they didn’t mean trouble. They looked comfortable, and that in itself was enough to make Juno uncomfortable. He did his best to make sure they never got too loud or ever laid a finger on the piano, just in case. Juno didn’t particularly care if it added to whatever record or file they liked to keep on him. Morocco was, for the time being, unoccupied. He’d like to make the most of that while it lasted. 

It was the speed of rumors and the pressure of the Major that brought the Captain to Juno’s back office. 

The drink in his hand was as performative as the oily sheen of his false-bright eyes, for he merely swirled the brandy around like an actor in a scene looking for something to do with his hands. The Captain’s fidgeting didn’t improve when Juno ushered him into a cavernous black leather chair, but at least Juno could keep a closer eye on when or why he twitched. 

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the German couriers by now,” he began, his eyes twitching back at the door, as if Juno hadn’t locked it himself. 

“You told me about them yesterday,” Juno cut off before he could finish. He felt his nails digging into the back of his own chair, which he left between the two of them so that he might hide his own fidgeting if the name of that particular revolutionary were to cross the Captain’s lips.

“So I did,” the Captain smiled. “You are not a lady to be trifled with, I see.”

“Yeah, so quit trifling,” Juno returned. “What’s your angle here?”

“Angle, Mister Steel?”

“Yeah, an angle,” Juno replied flatly. “You ever been to Casablanca before? Everybody wants something, and everybody’s willing to do just about anything to get it. If someone asks for a drink in my back office and starts off the conversation by telling me something I already know, I get a little worried.”

“Goodness,” the Captain breathed, hiding the shake of his head behind a long draw from his glass. 

“So what do you want from me?”

“A certain gentleman was at your bar last night—I’m sure you remember the one we arrested,” the Captain began. “I think you would be interested to know that he died in the custody of myself and the Major.”

“How’d he croak?” 

“We haven’t decided yet,” the Captain shrugged. “Unfortunately, he did not have the transit papers on his person. That makes me think they can only be one place.”

“If you want a search warrant, why the hell are you asking me?” Juno snapped, the leather creaking under his vice grip. 

“I don’t want a search warrant,” the Captain explained. “The Major wants a search warrant. You and I may not always see eye to eye, Juno, but I think we can agree in our distaste for that gentleman.”

“The bar’s underground, Cap,” Juno snorted. “And I don’t plan on digging for it.”

“I just think it might be in your best interest to pass any information you have onto me in a civil manner,” the Captain pressed forward. Juno’s hand shot to his jacket pocket when he stood, but the Captain raised his hands in surrender. “I am just walking to the door, Mister Steel.”

“You’d better be,” Juno warned. 

“Before you decide entirely against civility, I’ll have you know that if, perhaps, those transit papers have come into your possession, the Major intends on killing anybody who assists in Nureyev’s escape,” the Captain paused to say as Juno yanked the door open like it had personally wronged him. 

“And why should I care about Nureyev?”

“You did both assist the French, if I’m remembering what the Major told me over our drink last night,” the Captain began, side by side with Juno as he ushered him back into the bar. 

“So what? A lot of people’ve assisted the French. I wouldn’t die for all of them,” Juno huffed. 

“I’m not a fool, Juno,” the Captain returned, a smile playing on the edge of his voice. “I’m of the belief that you’re a secret sentimentalist.”

“I think our little chat’s just about over,” Juno returned shortly. “You can go be wrong somewhere else.”

“And what of my proposal? Is there any information you might wish to pass on to myself or the Major?”

“Yeah,” Juno snorted. “That you can take your civility and shove it up your—”

The Captain’s palms collided, loud enough that Juno jumped and the band’s rendition of ‘A Train’ went off the rails. Juno caught the Major’s eye across the room and saw his face peel away into a slithering smile. 

“This bar is to be closed and searched on suspicion of illegal gambling!” the Captain cried. 

“What? You—you’ve literally got your winnings in your pocket,” Juno protested, voice raising to a shout over the commotion of voices and shoving bodies and screeching chairs. 

“While you might not kill me for going against your wishes, I cannot say the same of the Major,” the Captain leaned in to murmur. “When Casablanca becomes occupied, remember that when your head is on a pike and mine is not.”

“My workers have to eat, you know,” Juno spat. 

“Then pay them,” the Captain shrugged. “It is not my decision how you handle this establishment in the event of an emergency.”

“Look here—” 

The Captain’s eyes slid over Juno’s shoulder and widened. Juno wasn’t going to let his words die off just because a coward felt like looking scared, so he continued his angry gesticulation until the Captain caught him by the wrist and pulled him close enough to whisper to him. 

“The Major suspects you of possessing the papers. He also suspects that you might have interest in selling them to Nureyev. If you want to survive the week, I would try to avoid his anger,” he hissed. 

Juno cast his arm away. 

“I’ll die when and how I want, thanks.”

Peter Nureyev seemed to have the dumb luck of avoiding the bar that afternoon, though, with the way information travelled in Casablanca, Juno didn’t doubt that Nureyev had already heard some semblance of what had happened. By the time the swarming police had cleared out of the bar and Juno was left to check that the papers were undisturbed in their hiding spot in the piano, he was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone in Casablanca who didn’t know. 

With his heart still beating just a little too fast at the memory of those careless, gloved hands tossing chairs and potted plants and patrons aside in search of a few scraps of paper, he glanced around for any shadows that looked a little too much like a person, then slid the forms into his breast pocket. 

Juno wasn’t one to break a long-earned habit of avoiding drink, so he poured himself a glass of water and memorized the feeling of the glass’s curves and ridges around his fingers. He reminded himself his feet were on the ground in Casablanca, even if the old coping mechanism felt more like a curse with every passing day. 

He’d sell his soul to be in that little patch of paradise he and Peter Ransom called Paris, but as much as he hoped and prayed that it would, time didn’t work that way. He had made his decision, and even with Nureyev’s return and all the possibilities that brought, Juno doubted he could fix what damage he’d done. 

A creak from the apartment upstairs yanked Juno out of his own head by the throat. 

“Shit,” he hissed. He set the glass down as quietly as he could manage, the other hand inching towards the pocket that contained his gun. 

The stairs to his living space above the bar weren’t particularly kind to his attempts at sneaking, but the hurried footsteps of the person upstairs rolled around like crashing waves desperate to erode a cliff that refused to smooth itself away. He doubted they could hear him if they wanted to, but nonetheless, every creak of the stairs beneath his shoes felt like the groan and snap of an over-sore joint. 

The apartment grew closer and closer, as did Juno’s hand draw to his gun. His heart thrummed against his throat like a trapped animal at the thought that he might have to pull the trigger, as if the Captain and Major needed another reason to have him jailed. He doubted he would fare much better than the ratlike man, six feet under in an unmarked grave. 

Juno rounded a corner and gasped when his full body’s weight slammed into something that usually didn’t occupy that doorway. He had hardly processed the feeling of the stone floor against his back when he felt himself let out a shaky groan. 

When he pried his face out of a wince, his eyes went wide. 

Peter Nureyev mirrored his expression from above. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Juno panted. 

“I should ask you the same,” Nureyev sputtered. 

“No you shouldn’t,” Juno said. “I live here.”

“Oh.”

“Help me up,” Juno grimaced. 

Nureyev seized a hand around his outstretched wrist and pulled with the kind of quiet strength Juno had always remembered, yet decided never to ask about when they had been lovers in Paris all those months ago. When Peter’s hand fell away, Juno felt a part of himself leave with it. 

“Are you alright?”

“Well, Nureyev,” Juno snorted. “I’m gonna have to thank you for cracking my back for me.”

“Let’s hope that’s all I cracked,” Nureyev replied with an apologetic wince. 

“So are you going to explain why you’re breaking into my apartment or not?” Juno huffed. 

“I was looking for you, Juno,” Peter returned tersely. 

“And you had to pull back the covers to look for me?” Juno droned. 

“I don’t like you standing just after that fall of yours,” Nureyev deflected. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you a glass of water or the first aid kit, just in case?”

“I think I’ll stand,” Juno replied coldly. 

“At least stand somewhere out of view of a window,” Nureyev hissed. When Juno didn’t move, he seized him by the arm and dragged him into the bedroom, all but manhandling him into a sitting position on the unmade bed. 

“Have it your way then,” Juno complained. “Anything you wanna ask me while you’re breaking into my house and interrogating me?”

“Juno, I’ve come into contact with a pair of rather interesting stories,” Nureyev began as he slid into a chair at Juno’s side. 

Juno had a few too many fond memories of Nureyev sitting at his side, whether it be on an overpriced boat ride down the Seine or driving around the countryside or on a couch with their shoulders touching and a glass of champagne each. The champagne in Paris had a way of tasting like starlight, though Juno supposed the company always made it better. Whatever way Nureyev sat, he never fell into a chair. Anything below him was a throne, barely worthy to keep him aloft. However, with desperation dismantling his composure as they spoke, it seemed, perhaps for the first time, this chair was just another chair. 

Juno knew something was terribly wrong when Nureyev slouched. 

“Let me guess, one of them’s about those German couriers nobody can shut up about and those fairytale letters of transit.”

“That’s the first,” Nureyev smiled, though his charm seemed frayed at the edges. 

“And what’s the other?”

“That you might have both of those papers in your possession.”

Juno swallowed. Clearly, Nureyev had heard the story enough to hear it wrong, though Juno supposed it was an honest enough mistake, with two couriers killed and only one piece of paperwork to speak of. 

“And what makes you think that?” Juno tried to say as evenly as he could, though he felt a waver in his voice betray him. 

“I’m not a fool, Juno,” Nureyev shot back. “I saw you put something in the piano, and clearly the Captain saw enough to suspect you, or else he wouldn’t have raided your establishment.”

“I’ll humor you,” Juno attempted with a humorless laugh, though it came out a little too high and a little too reedy, and from the way Nureyev stared him down like a snake guessing the way a mouse would feel sliding down its throat, he had a feeling Peter had seen right through him.

“Go on,” Nureyev smiled. 

Nureyev’s smiles trended towards the sublime. When he and Juno shared a private one over drinks or a meal or just some decent conversation, Juno had always felt like some primal part of him wanted to put as much distance between himself and something so terrifyingly beautiful. The rest of him, wanting nothing more than to press their lips together and memorize the way Peter felt in his arms, had always kept him in place. 

This was not one of those smiles. Instead, it had the cool, glassy quality of flint, while his eyes blazed with an unspoken fury Juno feared far more than any one of those soft looks that he missed more than air that wasn’t caked with aridity. 

“So say I do have those papers,” Juno continued, even under that stare that felt no less cruel than the great eye of the watchtower. “Why the hell would I give them to you? Why would I still be here, if I could just leave?”

“Simple. You’ve hardly had a day to think on the matter,” Nureyev replied easily. 

“I don’t have them,” Juno shot back. “If I did, I’d be gone. I’m sick of the Captain and the Major breathing down my neck. I don’t need you too.”

“Don’t lie to me, Juno,” Nureyev returned, muzzling a snarl as he spoke. “I’ve taken enough of that from you for a lifetime.”

Juno stood, though Nureyev was already on his feet and tugging his shoulder back when Juno turned to leave. 

“I’m not finished with you,” Peter spat. 

“Funny. I got the feeling you wanted me to be just about anywhere but here,” Juno said with a mirthless laugh. “You’re not—”

The gun against Juno’s ribs slaughtered his train of thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOWEE!!! Cliffhanger y'all!!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll think unkind thoughts
> 
> find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive yearned so hard and we finally made it folks
> 
> Content warnings for death threats, background war/invasion, alcohol mention, past injury, self hatred, implied self sacrifice, self destructive tendencies mention, murder mention

“What are you doing?”

“You’re not an idiot, so don’t pretend to be one,” Nureyev shuddered through his words. “No man in his right mind would sell me passage out of Casablanca. Those papers might be my only chance to survive the week. If I die, there will be others to fill my shoes, but there will not be others to replace me. Do you understand, or do I need to say it slower?”

“Can’t hear you over that gun of yours,” Juno snorted. 

“Give me the papers, and then maybe I won’t need to worry about cleaning your entrails off those lovely white walls of yours,” Peter continued as the gun got a little friendlier with Juno’s breastbone. 

His threat sounded sure, even practiced. However, with only the length of the gun between them, Juno could clearly see how often Nureyev blinked and the way his pulse jumped in his throat. In Paris, his eyes had always seemed to shimmer with unseen stars. In Casablanca, they seemed to brim with some emotion akin to the sputtered panic of a caught fish.

“You’re not gonna shoot me,” Juno returned flatly. “You wouldn’t.”

“It’s been a long year, Juno. Perhaps I’ve changed,” Nureyev spat. 

“Alright then,” Juno shrugged, stepping ever closer to the gun. When Nureyev inched backwards, he seized him by the wrist and pressed the barrel directly over his heart. “Shoot me. You’d be doing me a favor.”

Juno closed his eyes and took one last deep breath. Then another. And another. 

When he opened his eyes again, his gaze locked on those shining eyes, and he felt a sigh pulled from him as if Nureyev had reached into his throat and extracted it by hand. 

He wanted to shoot back some retort, but his words caught in his throat and his eye threatened to water when he stared too long at a face naked in its pain and preemptive grief. When it seemed Nureyev couldn’t bear it any longer, he cast the gun away and onto the bedside table to throw his arms around Juno’s shoulders. 

“I hate you,” he breathed, words shaking with anger or sorrow or some horrible shade between. Juno couldn’t see, however, for Nureyev had pressed his face into his shoulder. “You bastard. Look what you’ve made of me.”

“Is this a bad time to apologize?” Juno heard himself choke. He couldn’t believe that he could conjure words with Peter Nureyev holding him like letting go meant certain death. 

“Depends on if that apology comes with one of those papers of yours,” Nureyev chuckled weakly. Juno felt his heart clench at the sound, and instantly decided his life would be wasted if he didn’t spend its remainder dedicated to hearing it again. 

“I have one in my jacket pocket,” Juno sighed, shaking his head when Nureyev reached for the wrong one. “Other way.”

“You—” Nureyev trailed off when he pulled back, one wrist still resting around Juno’s neck as he considered the letter of transit in his hand. When he looked up, it seemed he could only tear his eyes from Juno’s gaze to flicker down to his lips. “Thank you. I assume you’re using the other to escape on your own. If they find out you’ve used one to help me, I would suggest leaving as soon as you can.”

Juno swallowed. 

“Something like that.”

It was incredibly hard to think with Nureyev’s arms repositioning around his waist, just like that one dance they had attended before the war began and the world shriveled and died at their feet. It was even harder to lie. 

“Are you alright?” Nureyev started after a lengthy pause. “You look like there’s something on your mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Juno blurted out. He took a deep breath to slow his words. “I wasn’t in a good place, and that’s not an excuse, but I shouldn’t have made you promises I knew I couldn’t keep. I stayed behind to help the resistance, but even if it was a hell of a good cause, it didn’t give me any reason to leave you without a note. If it makes anything at all better, I meant everything I said. If you don’t want to forgive me, I don’t blame you. I don’t think I would, but that’s not my decision to make. I just—”

Nureyev kissed the remainder of his apology from his lips. Juno wished he could have spent an eternity there, but before he could truly appreciate the feeling of two people cut by some divine hand to fit together, Nureyev pulled back by just an inch to fix him with a smile so soft Juno felt something within him shatter. 

“God, I missed this,” he breathed, then pulled Juno close to meet his lips again. 

Peter’s kiss smelled like roses and sounded like a little jazz ballad drifting from a pitchy piano beneath the hands of a friendly pianist who tipped his hat when they came through the door. It was a clear sky and a person to call his own, rather than just one to warm his bed for a little while. It filled his chest with a kind of warmth and fervor he thought had died a year ago, and apparently, was potent enough that one of Nureyev’s hands had to cup his cheek and wipe his eye. 

Even if he tried to pretend, just for the sake of the smile he felt sliding across Peter’s face, he couldn’t help his eyes stinging at the feeling of his coat pocket, empty of that second letter of transit Nureyev believed him to have. 

When they broke apart, Nureyev’s hand still rested on his cheek, his eyes brimming with the smoke of that recently doused anger. In the evening glow from the curtain-bound window, his scar seemed silvery, like a purposefully donned piece of jewelry. 

His mouth opened and closed several times. For the first time in his life, it seemed, Nureyev couldn’t think of the first thing to say. Juno came to his rescue when he felt the only thought in his mind pass his lips. 

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he smiled. 

“We’re not even toasting anything,” Nureyev replied with a poorly fought-off laugh. 

“Aren’t we, though?” 

Peter pulled him back into a rib-cracking hug, though this time, he left Juno’s head over his shoulder to save him another ache in his neck. While Nureyev clung to him with all the pent up affections of a year spent rent apart, all Juno could see was the flashing light of the watchtower that elongated his blinds into shadowy, horizontal prison bars when it swished by.

“I tried so hard to hate you, my darling,” Nureyev murmured into Juno’s shoulder. Juno reached a hand up to run gentle lines through his hair, an action he had once paired with sweet nothings and what turned out to be empty promises a million years ago. “I’m sorry if I was cruel without reason.”

“Not without reason,” Juno snorted. “I didn’t need to tell you about my eye like that.”

“It was disgusting,” Nureyev admitted. “Though I doubt my own scar has a much kinder story.”

Juno pulled his head back enough to get a decent look at the scar of which Nureyev spoke, keeping his hands on Peter’s shoulders as he eyed it.

“You’re not gonna believe me, but I think it looks nice,” Juno smiled sheepishly. “I know you probably don’t have the best memories attached there, but not everyone can pull off a scar like that. It’s kinda dashing.”

“Dashing,” Nureyev repeated, laughter haunting the edge of his voice. “I’ll have to send my thanks to the guard who blocked the door so I would need to break through a window.”

“Do you want to talk about it some time?” Juno offered. Though it broke his heart to do so, he pulled himself out of Nureyev’s arms to walk him towards the bed, if only to sit at his side once more and remember how it felt to do so as lovers. 

“Not particularly,” Nureyev replied with a weak smile. “Maybe if you get me drunk, I’ll tell you by accident.”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Juno returned. “So you’ll be drinking on your own.”

“I’m proud of you.”

Juno felt his heart skip a beat when Nureyev’s head came to rest upon his shoulder. As if guided by some unseen force, Juno linked their hands together. Peter brought the back of Juno’s hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss so soft that Juno wondered if he hadn’t just imagined it.

“There’s no way in hell I’m not dreaming,” Juno chuckled. 

“Not a dream, darling. Anything I could do to prove it otherwise?” Nureyev mused. 

“I’ll admit, I’ve had a lot of dreams about you,” Juno said with a nervous laugh as he felt his face go hot. He continued on quickly, though his elaboration did nothing to shatter Nureyev’s smug expression. “You’re always an asshole when I dream about you though, so I’ve gotta be awake.”

Nureyev laughed like it had been punched out of him, and even with that creeping uncertainty that stalked every dark corner of Casablanca, Juno couldn’t help but join him. 

“Darling, do stop me if I’m asking too much of you too fast, but—assuming you’re planning to leave Casablanca as soon as you can—would you consider taking that flight side by side with me?” Nureyev offered. 

Juno remembered the stars in his eyes when Nureyev had proposed, and he remembered even more potently the way they sputtered and choked and faded when Juno turned his head and told him the future was too far ahead to plan. As a rule, Juno tried not to prepare for anything past the same afternoon. The world liked to turn on a dime, and he was just another poor sucker in a mountain of poor suckers that it liked to throw around. 

He was pretty sure it would kill him to watch those stars die in Peter’s eyes again. 

“I’ll arrange a flight for tomorrow evening,” he said, and pretended he couldn’t hear his own heart breaking when Nureyev’s face bloomed into a smile. 

“Why not run away with me tonight?” Nureyev offered. “We’ll find some corner of America to make our own. You can open a real Cafe Americain somewhere, and I’ll continue helping my cause from somewhere safer.”

“I think I owe you a day in Casablanca before we run,” Juno smiled, though it melted into a soft sigh when Nureyev kissed him again. Juno didn’t have it in him to protest. It felt like every second not spent with his lips against Peter’s was a second wasted, and there was still a year to compensate for. 

“Of course,” Nureyev smiled, so close it brushed Juno’s lips. “Just don’t take too long in saying goodbye. If I’m remembering correctly, that price on your head still stands.” 

When Nureyev leaned away, his fingers still trailed along Juno’s cheek. It seemed he knew that when he touched Juno, the departure of his hand always dragged some part of Juno away with it. It was a strange cycle of joy and grief and giddiness and loss, all fueled by pretending tomorrow wouldn’t come. Any pang in his chest was healed the moment he felt his eyes drift back over Nureyev’s face. 

In doing so, he caught sight of Peter’s scar once more. He felt Nureyev’s brow furrow and relax when he leaned forward to press a kiss along that long-healed injury, his thumb replacing his lips in worship of this new mark that hadn’t been there to exalt when Juno had seen him last. 

“I forgot how sweet you were.” 

“Only to you,” Juno snorted. 

“You, my darling, need better coping mechanisms,” Nureyev returned with a little squeeze to Juno’s hand. 

“I’ve been in Casablanca for the better part of a year,” Juno huffed. “There’s only so much a lady can do to deal with that.” 

“And you’re leaving tomorrow,” Nureyev assured him. “We’re leaving tomorrow, in some discreet little plane to wherever we decide to make our home.” 

Juno didn’t have the stomach to tell him otherwise, so he occupied his lips on the base of Nureyev’s neck, sweet and soft and chaste, as if he were confessing his love instead of that horrible lie that struck the match of Peter’s earth-shattering smile. 

“I’ll admit, I’m a bit scared to dream of all these tomorrows,” Peter confessed, a hand creeping into Juno’s hair and running intimate little circles along his scalp as he spoke, a thin laugh saturating his voice. “A happy ending has always been nebulous for me. It was just an excuse for waking up every morning, if I’m being frank. But to hold my future in my hand...God, I didn’t think it was possible.” 

“Mhm,” Juno murmured. He chuckled when he felt Nureyev’s hand pull his head just a bit closer. “Enjoying yourself up there?” 

“Something of the like,” Nureyev smiled. “I’ve got a ticket out of Casablanca in my hand and Juno Steel making my neck wet. What more could I ever want in life?” 

“Shut up,” Juno snorted. “You want me to stop?” 

“Oh no,” Nureyev waved him off. “Please do continue ruining the collar of this shirt.” 

“Have it your way then,” Juno replied with a roll of his eyes. 

A year had made the walk down Nureyev’s buttons a stumbling one, even if his hands calmed and steadied as Peter’s began to guide them. That alone felt more intimate than the kiss itself, just kind, patient, guiding skin on skin while Nureyev fixed him with the kind of smile Juno felt he wouldn’t ever deserve in a million years. 

Both sets of hands fell away about halfway down his shirt, Juno’s own fumbling fingers stopped when Nureyev put a ginger, pausing hold around his wrist. 

“I haven’t brought my suitcase,” he warned. 

“I’ll get it tomorrow.” 

“And you won’t be suspected if you’re seen in my hotel room?” Nureyev pressed. 

“I don’t think we need to worry,” Juno forced himself to smile. “We’re leaving Casablanca tomorrow. Who cares what the Major says? We won’t be around to hear him say it.” 

Self preservation seemed oddly tempting. He doubted there was much the Captain could do to save him once he’d so blatantly refused to stay neutral, and he was sure the Major would have his head if he suspected Juno had a hand in Nureyev’s escape. 

However, he had dealt with them before. If all else went wrong, he could find another way to run. For the time being, his mind was spliced in two. The first half saw nought but Nureyev’s pulse jumping in his throat and the slightly elevated rise and fall of his chest where his half undone shirt laid it bare. The second half remembered that after tomorrow night, he would probably never see Peter Nureyev again. 

So Juno kissed him and prayed this might make a kinder farewell than the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeeHAW FINALLY!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll eat your kneecaps
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT FOLKS!!!!
> 
> Content warnings for nightmares, implied sexual content, self hatred, betrayal, implied PTSD, gun violence, background war/invasion, self destructive behavior, pain medication mention, imprisonment (past), (past) implied torture, gun violence, death threats, attempted self sacrifice

Juno didn’t usually wake up with a finger in his mouth. Or a finger in his eye. Or a hand pressing into his chest in a desperate, blind search for glasses that refused to solidify out of the inky, predawn darkness. 

When he sat up, tugged his eye patch back into place, and managed a glance around, the owner of those glasses was poking them back over the bridge of his nose. Nureyev, whose posture usually resembled that of a cadet was bent double and panting. Juno could make out his wide and wild eyes as they darted around the room as if any shadow amidst the gray haze of predawn dark might be a hidden gunman. 

“Nureyev,” Juno croaked, still yawning the sleep away from his voice. “What’s going on?” 

“I—“ Peter began, voice as unsure as Juno had ever heard it. Only when Juno blinked thrice more did he notice Nureyev was clutching his gun with a visibly shaky hand. “I thought I saw—“ 

“Breathe,” Juno reminded him. 

Juno laid one hand atop his shoulder with the kind of care required to weave lace by hand. Nureyev froze under his touch, but after a seizing, shuddering breath, conceded to let his panic melt. His statuesque posture withered, shoulders sagging and a breath wheezing out of him like the last gasp of a dying man. 

“You’re still in Casablanca,” Juno murmured. “You’re safe.”

“I’m safe,” Nureyev repeated, chest still heaving and eyes still blown wide, their gaze ruthless upon a blank spot on the wall. 

“Do you wanna lay down again?” Juno pressed. 

Even if his hand was outstretched upon Nureyev’s shoulder, he offered no other point of contact, just in case Peter should feel smothered. Nureyev proved him far too cautious when he untangled himself from the bedsheets enough to wrap around Juno’s side like a koala around a tree. Juno too laid down and shortly after, felt Peter’s head take its place just above his heart, as if listening to ensure it was still there. 

“I’m sorry I woke you, my love,” Nureyev murmured, words dampened against Juno’s chest. “Nightmares don’t always make for considerate bedmates.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Juno assured him. He felt Nureyev let out a shuddering sigh when Juno started fixing his hair, long since cast from its regular style.

When one cautious hand began to haunt over the gray patch, Nureyev moved to catch his wrist, but the gesture died before it could reach its full arc of flight. 

“I’ll stop if you want,” Juno offered.

Nureyev shook his head.

“I’m gonna assume that gray patch isn’t just cosmetic.”

“I’m afraid not,” Nureyev sighed. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it, anyway. They don’t keep mirrors in the kind of prison I spent a portion of the last year in.”

“Oh,” Juno felt himself breathe, the sound knocked out of him in a tidal wave of realization. “And the scar?”

“Escaping.”

Juno tried not to think about just how healed that scar looked. He tried not to think of that widely-publicized arrest of a certain revolutionary at a certain Parisian train station.

To occupy his thoughts on kinder things, he pressed a kiss to that graying streak just above one corner of his hairline, as if that might do anything at all to remedy what harm had come to him in the last year. Nureyev merely pulled him tighter. Juno could feel his heart still hammering away at long-dead ghosts all the while.

“Anything I can do to help?” Juno tried to ask in a steady voice. 

“Just stay with me, dear,” Nureyev murmured, a yawn slurring his voice, even if the nervous twitch of his hands and the thrumming from his chest protested. “This is far better than I usually get. I’m usually alone.”

“I can stay with you,” Juno assured him. 

Juno couldn’t help but think of Atlas, trembling for all eternity in his constant battle to hold up the sky. Juno would take the sky over the burden of knowing mere hours from that moment, he would have to leave Nureyev again. 

For the time being, he let his fingers run through Nureyev’s hair, fixing it when he knocked a strand out of place and running little circles over the spots that made him let out contented sighs. With every passing minute, he felt him relax, his stress gradually seeping away until he was left a dead weight against Juno’s chest, still save for the deep, even breaths of a well-earned sleep. 

Juno, on the other hand, couldn’t find it in him to fall back asleep if he wanted to. He tried his best to keep himself calm, for fear his pounding heart might wake Nureyev up in their precariously vulnerable positions. However, with thoughts of the single letter of transit squirming in his chest, he tried his best to repurpose his mind on the moment before him, rather than the situation. 

He was in a bed, in an apartment, above a bar in Casablanca. He was holding Peter Nureyev, whose name he once thought to be Ransom, in a bed, in an apartment, above a bar, in Casablanca. 

Juno had known Peter Ransom in Paris, but he was not the man drifting through sleep in his arms. Peter Nureyev had nightmares, and a scar, and a streak of gray hair he wore like a crown, whereas Ransom had worn naivety about him like perfume. However, they still smiled the same, and they both forgot to keep their shoulders from sagging when they were being especially sincere. They both liked their heads in the same place upon Juno’s chest, though Ransom seemed to hold him for the sake of intimacy, while Nureyev, even asleep and a dead weight, felt pulled to him by some force of fear. 

He supposed they weren’t too different, even if Nureyev was quicker to strike the match of anger or bloom joy across his face. One could only take so much world weariness before becoming impatient. Juno had that fact to thank for his own personality. 

When Nureyev awoke again, it was with blunted yellow light from the window easing across his face and a sigh so sweet it broke Juno’s heart to know he might never hear one again. 

“Good morning,” Juno smiled, reminding himself to do so while he still had the chance. 

“Morning,” Nureyev slurred his way through a yawn. “My, you’re warm.”

“Do you want me to take the comforter off?” Juno chuckled. 

“No, no,” Nureyev mumbled, his face still pressed into Juno’s chest. “I never said it was a bad thing, darling.”

“Give me a heads up whenever you feel like moving,” Juno snorted. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

“It’s a nice offer, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep you here for some while longer,” Peter grinned. “I think you might as well close up this bar and start a career as a pillow. You’re quite good at it.”

“I’ll be your pillow for as long as you want in America.”

“If you insist,” Nureyev huffed, rolling off of Juno, though it seemed each inch between the two of them required a mile’s worth of fortitude. Juno too stood, even if his joints protested and his face drew into a wince as he turned to toss Nureyev a robe. 

“My God, I really did do a number on your back,” Nureyev mused as he pulled Juno’s robe around his shoulders. 

Even with the wince still melting, Juno couldn’t help a smile when he saw Peter adjusting the belt of his robe. It had been far too long since he’d seen his clothes on someone else, and he had to admit, they looked damn good on Peter Nureyev. 

“Which time?” Juno joked. 

“I was exceedingly careful with you, darling,” Nureyev protested with a feigned scoff. 

“Maybe you should’ve looked around the corner before running me over,” Juno snorted as he continued to dress. 

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I break into your home.”

Nureyev kept haunting Juno for the rest of the day, whether he was murmuring half-asleep sweet nothings into the back of his neck while he cooked breakfast or dressed to the nines in Juno’s bar that afternoon. 

Juno had seen his fair share of artwork between America and France and Morocco, but every piece paled in comparison to the way Peter looked in his double breasted suit, lips painted wine red and neck painted with enough concealer to hide the mark Juno had left a few too many inches above his collar. Even when he wasn’t flashing his fox-like grin from some dark corner of Juno’s Cafe Americain in an attempt to catch an unnoticed smile drifting across Juno’s lips in return, he remained one of the sole occupants of his mind. 

That was making it quite difficult to spend more than a minute in one of those wood-backed chairs in the Captain’s office. They seemed designed with the intent of torturing the sitter, for however he squirmed or crossed or rearranged his legs, his back still creaked and his shoulders still ached and his face still burned beneath the Captain’s gaze. 

“I’m selling Nureyev that letter of transit about an hour after close today,” Juno lied, even if he felt every eye from every photograph on the cluttered walls boring down on him like burrowing insects. 

“Juno,” the Captain gasped. “Leave my office. I can’t have the Major know you told me. Do what you wish to do, but if you confess to me and he asks, I cannot protect you.”

Juno shook his head. 

“Shut up. I’m making you a deal,” Juno pressed on. “Nureyev will be buying stolen goods an hour after close. If any Captains were to come to my door a half hour before that, I wouldn’t be opposed to letting them in. And if they happened to arrest Nureyev while they were there, well, then that would just be dumb luck.”

“I see.”

“So how about this? You call me a clipper or biplane. Something small. Get it to the airport, and get it ready to take off at a moment’s notice,” Juno explained. “And if you can get all that ready for me, I’ll hand you Nureyev on a silver platter.”

The Captain smiled faintly. 

“So you’re leaving Casablanca, then?”

“Thought it was about time. I’ve left the restaurant to my head waiter, so everything should be taken care of. I can’t stay here forever, especially with the Major around,” Juno sighed. 

“I’ll miss the company,” the Captain admitted. “Decent people are hard to come by.”

“Gonna be harder, once the Major ships the rest of his ‘diplomats’ in,” Juno snorted. 

“I’ll keep that off the record, for both of our sakes,” the Captain returned. “I am glad you’re leaving. As much as you’ve meant to this city, I don’t think it has treated you well. I hope you might find safety somewhere to weather out the war.”

The Captain reached a hand across his desk. Juno took it and shook, trying to ignore the way something inside him curdled at the feeling. 

The cruel, white beam of the watchtower passed over the doorway of the bar when Nureyev stepped inside that evening, teeth bared in a delight so potent he seemed to hardly hear the ever pacing steps of the Captain from Juno’s office. 

Even if they’d soon make their way into that choking evening mist soon, Juno took his coat, if only to have something to hang onto. He knew well the Captain wouldn’t come out of his hiding place until the exact time they agreed upon, but he wasn’t exactly sure how many displays of affection could pass as merely an act before the officer became suspicious. Instead, Juno merely ran his fingers along the slight bloodstain in the arm of Nureyev’s coat while Peter took a seat atop the bar. 

“Is your arm feeling any better?” Juno asked, and hoped it might pass as neutral. “Nasty cut you got the other day.”

“It’s not its best, but it didn’t require any more than some bandaging, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Nureyev replied easily. “I’ve weathered far worse, my dear.”

“Good to hear,” Juno tried and failed to smile. Nureyev, eyes cast off somewhere along an unseeable horizon, didn’t seem to notice.

“You have your suitcases packed, I assume?” Nureyev asked from his seat upon the bar, where he had one knee atop the other and a stuffed suitcase atop that. 

“Yeah. It’s by the door,” Juno replied. 

He had hardly made an appearance at the bar for most of the day, instead spending the whole while cramming his life into a single bag. He managed to fit a few weeks of clothing, as well as a nice suit and the blue dress he had worn the day he meant to flee from France, a toothbrush, a first aid kit, and enough over the counter pain pills for a lifetime’s worth of knee pain. Each trailed two dozen memories behind them, whether they be of specific days or joys or miseries, or just being on the ground in Casablanca, and being painfully, tragically aware of that fact. 

Juno tried to shrug as if the perfect little life he had falsely promised Peter Nureyev weren’t packed into that bag, begging him to find some way to leave as well. At the end of the day, however, there was only one letter of transport, and it was folded neatly into the breast pocket of Nureyev’s coat. 

Juno was snapped out of his thoughts by a rapid succession of sounds he hadn’t accounted for. First, the door creaked when the Captain pushed it open. Second, the floor groaned under his sudden weight. Third, Nureyev drew forth a pistol Juno hadn’t realized was quietly smoldering on his hip. 

“Don’t move,” Nureyev ordered. 

Juno could see exactly why the Major wanted Nureyev dead. Even in two words, it seemed he could command an army. He had the posture of a general and his voice carried the sturdiness of a mountain. His shooting arm was visibly tense through his shirt, though his face remained steady. He wore rage and betrayal and fear with all the grace of a Grecian marble. Juno would hate to be on the other end of his gun. 

“You promised me Nureyev unarmed,” the Captain choked. 

“You what?” Nureyev demanded. 

“I didn’t promise you anything,” Juno shot back. “I want you to walk over here with your hands up, and I want you to make a call on that phone, or my buddy over here shoots.” 

“I didn’t agree to any of this,” Nureyev hissed in Juno’s ear as the Captain complied, eyes wide and head hung and hands twitching above his head. 

“I meant to tell you, okay?” Juno grumbled back. “It’s the only way I could get us a plane without the chance of getting stopped. Just because you’ve got transport out of here doesn’t mean they can’t hold you back indefinitely.” 

“He’s got a point, you know,” the Captain sighed, sinking into the chair beside the phone. 

“Oh, do be quiet,” Nureyev snapped. “Make the call. My poor trigger finger’s been stiff as of late, and I’d hate to have a reason to stretch it.” 

“Are all your friends like this, Mister Steel?” the Captain huffed as he began to turn the dial of the phone towards the right number. 

“Just the ones worth keeping around,” Juno snorted. 

Nureyev squeezed his hand, still not breaking his glare at the Captain. 

“I’m still mad at you for this, darling,” Nureyev returned. 

“I know, honey,” Juno sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to communicate better next time we threaten a man at gunpoint together.” 

“I’ll keep you honest on that promise, then,” Peter managed to smile. 

Juno opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when he heard a distant click over the phone.

“Major?” The Captain began. “Yes, I’d like a plane ready to leave as quickly as possible. Yes, a small one is best.”

He paused.

“There’s nothing wrong.” 

When the line clicked dead, the Captain lowered the receiver, his hand shaking all the way down. Nureyev’s hand remained ruthlessly steady, and the fixated stare of those sharp, bright eyes that had plunged a hand into Juno’s chest and altered something fundamental within him held fast as well. 

Peter directed the Captain to the door with the pistol jabbed into his back and his fingers knotted in one of his lapels. Juno trailed behind with both bags of luggage, feeling oddly like some sort of scale of justice weighing the costs of staying and going in each hand. Even when Nureyev had shoved the Captain into the passenger seat of Juno’s car and instructed Juno to keep the mouth of his own weapon just behind the headrest, both suitcases continued to weigh in his lap. 

A bigger part of Juno than he wanted to admit liked the idea of going himself. It was the same part that was sick of hurting and making himself hurt worse. France hadn’t cured it, and neither would Casablanca, but maybe running to somewhere with a little more security from the uncertainty hounding at him might wane. 

It wasn’t the right choice to make, but Juno had to admit it sounded tempting. He knew escaping wouldn’t fix everything. Even if it would toss the Captain and the Major off of his shoulders, Juno would take sleeping six feet under to never sleeping another night again. Knowing what he knew about Nureyev, staying behind in Casablanca was a death sentence. 

They had said their ‘I love yous’ in France, but not Morocco. Even if time and circumstance and the great, palpable uncertainty that weighed the air down with fog had held the words back from Juno’s lips in Casablanca, the sentiment remained. He hoped it might manifest in staying behind to ensure Nureyev got to safety. He supposed a good part of loving someone meant wanting them happy, even a million miles away. 

He could almost see the runway now, rendered grayscale by the heavy night and even heavier fog. Somewhere high above, Nureyev’s plane would grow a tinier and tinier blip of light against the unseeable void until it blinked out like a shooting star going far away from Juno. 

When the car stopped and Nureyev moved to hold his door open, he wished he could have given his hand a squeeze that might mean some iota of what was going through his mind, but, fearing the Captain might move, he kept his hand on his gun and his wrist far too tense to tarry for a moment. 

“This should be your plane, Mister Nureyev,” the Captain explained, nodding his head towards the plane rolling up the track. His back remained rigid and his hands tight within his pockets, as if afraid to make any sudden movements. 

“That kind of plane only seats a pilot and one passenger,” Peter thought aloud. “Captain, are you positive you—”

“It only needs to seat one passenger,” Juno heard himself say. 

“Juno, if you’re trying to stay in Casablanca, I promise you, it won’t do you any more than harm,” Nureyev began. He seemed to have forgotten any kind of threats towards the Captain, for he had taken Juno’s face in both his hands. 

“Nureyev,” Juno started, but found his mouth had gone as dry as the surrounding desert. 

“I don’t know what they’ll do to you if you stay behind.”

Juno wished he didn’t have to watch every millimeter of Nureyev’s heartbreak shattering across his face, but he didn’t have it in him to tear that touch away. Instead, he merely wrapped his arms around Peter’s lower back and held him close, suitcases long forgotten. 

“I’m gonna have to tell you something terrible,” Juno said with the kind of exhale so deep he felt like a part of his soul left with it. 

“I think I can handle it.”

“You’re gonna have to either way,” Juno returned. “You heard wrong. There was only ever one letter of transit. I’m giving it to you. I want you to get out of here as fast as you can, and I only want you to stop when you know for sure you’re safe.”

“But your suitcase—”

“If something goes really wrong, I’m going to drive as far as I need to. But only one of us is getting on that plane, and it’s not gonna be me.”

There always seemed to be something dark and glossy and clever, that danced just beyond the surface of Peter Nureyev’s eyes. Even if no smile crossed his lips, there was always some active whirring, like somewhere, on the inside of his head, he was laughing at a private joke he didn’t feel the need to share. Sometimes they sparked or smoldered or all but glowed with a soft, private affection Juno felt blessed for having seen.

Now, all Juno could see was his own mournful grimace, reflected back at himself twice. 

“You idiot,” Nureyev breathed, finally shaking his head and freeing Juno from the awful prison of his gaze. 

“Just one unlucky bastard,” Juno returned with a dry laugh. 

“What if I were to stay? I’m sure I could find a contact somewhere who might be willing to—” 

Juno cut him off with a shake of his head. 

“If you stay, you’re gonna come to regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon and for the rest of your life,” Juno pressed. “We had a day together, and I can only thank whatever force is pulling the strings for that, but I don’t know if you’re going to make it through the week if you stay behind.”

“There has to be another way,” Nureyev protested. “They’ll kill you.” 

“And? I’m just another person. You—“ Juno broke off when Nureyev’s thumb began to slide over his cheek. “You can actually do something to help people.” 

“That doesn’t make you unimportant.“

“But it gives you a damn good reason to get on that plane,” Juno finished. 

“Juno, I—“ 

Juno’s exhale cut Nureyev’s protest short. 

“Quit trying to fight with me,” Juno said. “I’m trying to say goodbye.” 

He felt the backs of his eyes burning, a spike in the numbness he had so carefully curated to ensure Nureyev wouldn’t have to see him cry. It didn’t seem to matter, however, for Peter was kissing him before he could even blink the tears away. The sigh he felt himself breathe against Nureyev’s lips might have been half a sob, but he didn’t particularly care. Juno clutched him like letting go meant death, and for once, wondered if that might not be less figurative than he thought. 

“Juno,” Nureyev breathed when such curses as air and time and the sound of a distant motor that might have been the Major’s car forced them to part.

“Here‘s looking at you, kid,” Juno tried to smile, for doing so might mean seeing an echo of the expression in Nureyev’s face one last time. 

“I’m only getting on that plane if you promise me you’ll try to find a way to leave Casablanca,” Nureyev returned, his face grave. 

“If that’s what you need to hear, I’ll promise,” Juno agreed, still trying to memorize the way Peter’s hands felt against his neck and his face. From the way Nureyev pulled him closer, he wondered if he was trying to do the same. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to say farewell.” 

“We’ll always have Paris,” Juno assured him. 

“I think I preferred our time in Casablanca,” Nureyev sighed. 

Juno wanted to reply, if only to find some excuse to hold him tight forever and keep the choking whirring of the nearby plane a distant reality. However, a new whirring, that of a coughing engine and the buzz of the Major’s ever-nearing chatter with another officer drew closer and ripped Juno out of his head by force.

“Shit, the Major must have known he sounded scared. You have to go,” Juno hissed, a hand flying to his gun. “I’ll hold them off. You need to run.” 

“I’m not making you—“

“Go, dammit!” Juno cried. 

He tried to pick up his gun, but found his wrist caught. 

“Nureyev,” he started, trying to fight his wrist free against both Peter’s hold and the righteous smolder in his eyes. “You’ve gotta let me go.” 

“Juno,” Nureyev returned evenly. “You’re going to help me steal this plane.” 

Juno’s ability to make a thought-out choice in the situation was shot dead by the bullet that whizzed past his ear and the resolute tug on his wrist. He picked up both suitcases and followed Nureyev as quickly as his legs would manage, uncaring if his arms burned or his joints protested, for Nureyev was already throwing the pilot out of the plane and taking his place. 

“You know how to fly this thing?” Juno screamed over the roar of the engine. 

“I’ve lived quite the storied life, my love,” Nureyev grinned at equal volume. “Take your seat, dear. They’re still shooting at us.”

“I’m gonna warn you right now, I don’t do so hot with heights,” Juno groaned, though he fumbled his way into the protective gear nonetheless. 

“Just puke downwind of me, darling,” Nureyev replied with a triumphant cry that Juno barely registered as a laugh. 

“I’m gonna kill you,” Juno grimaced when he felt the plane’s wheels start to sputter forwards and he squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Please refrain from doing so until we’ve landed,” Peter chuckled.

Juno wasn’t sure if the whistling of the world whirring by grew too loud, or if the gunfire from below had faded away entirely. He didn’t have it in him to look down, instead keeping his eyes shut and his nails pressed into the leather of his seat. 

Calming himself was getting more and more difficult when he wasn’t on the ground, nor in Casablanca. He couldn’t help a chuckle at the thought. 

He was in the air a thousand miles above the desert. He was not in France, but he was not in Casablanca either. His feet weren’t on the ground, nor were they touching some link to the earth below. Juno found that he was fine with that. 

Juno was in a stolen airplane with Peter Nureyev, barreling through the great unknown and holding their futures in a pair of leather suitcases, and for that didn’t scare him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAA we made it folks!!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! (like with an e 22!)

**Author's Note:**

> whew!! hope this one goes over well :D
> 
> Fun fact: my google doc for this was originally called "here's looking at you, docs"
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll play Forbidden Piano Songs
> 
> Find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! Come take a look or heck, even stay a while and chat!


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